September 15th, 2017

Kotlin is a general purpose, open source, statically typed “pragmatic” programming language for the JVM and Android that combines object-oriented and functional programming features. It is focused on interoperability, safety, clarity, and tooling support. Versions of Kotlin for JavaScript (ECMAScript 5.1) and native code (using LLVM) are in the works.

Kotlin originated at JetBrains, the company behind IntelliJ IDEA, in 2010, and has been open source since 2012. The Kotlin team currently has more than 20 full-time members from JetBrains, … Read the rest

August 18th, 2017

Oracle wants to end its leadership in the development of enterprise Java and is looking for an open source foundation to take on the role.

The company said today that the upcoming Java EE (Enterprise Edition) 8 presents an opportunity to rethink how the platform is developed. Although development is done via open source with community participation, the current Oracle-led process is not seen agile, flexible, or open enough. ”We believe that moving Java EE technologies to an open source … Read the rest

August 17th, 2017

H2O, now in its third major revision, provides access to machine learning algorithms by way of common development environments (Python, Java, Scala, R), big data systems (Hadoop, Spark), and data sources (HDFS, S3, SQL, NoSQL). H2O is meant to be used as an end-to-end solution for gathering data, building models, and serving predictions. For instance, models can be exported as Java code, allowing predictions to be served on many platforms and in many environments.

August 14th, 2017

Although Oracle has been mostly quiet lately about the progress of its enterprise Java overhaul, that is likely to change soon with the impending arrival of Java Platform, Enterprise Edition 8, better known as Java EE 8.

The upgrade retools enterprise Java for cloud and microservices environments. A vote on the Java Community Process specification for Java EE 8 is under way and is due to be completed on August 21. Java EE 8, the official specification states, is about … Read the rest

August 9th, 2017

You’ve probably encountered the term “machine learning” more than a few times lately. Often used interchangeably with artificial intelligence, machine learning is in fact a subset of AI, both of which can trace their roots to MIT in the late 1950s.

Machine learning is something you probably encounter every day, whether you know it or not. The Siri and Alexa voice assistants, Facebook’s and Microsoft’s facial recognition, Amazon and Netflix recommendations, the technology that keeps self-driving cars from crashing into … Read the rest

August 4th, 2017

Machine learning is still a pipe dream for most organizations, with Gartner estimating that fewer than 15 percent of enterprises successfully get machine learning into production. Even so, companies need to start experimenting now with machine learning so that they can build it into their DNA.

Easy? Not even close, says Ted Dunning, chief application architect at MapR, but “anybody who thinks that they can just buy magic bullets off the shelf has no business” buying machine learning technology in … Read the rest

August 3rd, 2017

A long time ago, developers wrote assembly code that ran fast and light. On good days, they had enough money in their budget to hire someone to toggle all those switches on the front of the machine to input their code. On bad days, they flipped the switches themselves. Life was simple: The software loaded data from memory, did some arithmetic, and sent it back. That was all.

Today, developers must work with teams spread across multiple continents where people … Read the rest

July 26th, 2017

The JS Foundation is taking jurisdiction over Architect, an open source software project for provisioning and maintaining cloud infrastructure from a simple text file, with a focus on AWS Lambda and eventually other serverless computing implementations.

The Architect project proposes a file format referred to as .arc. It is intended to be a simpler way of setting up and maintaining Lambda cloud functions than deploying them manually or using infrastructure administration tools such as TerraForm. The .arc format is “easier … Read the rest

June 30th, 2017

“Asynchrony” is a scary word. It means taking events as they come, managing somehow to avoid being overtaken by them.

Event-driven asynchrony is the foundation of serverless computing, which, as a programming framework, is tailor-made for the internet of things. When you consider event scenarios in an IoT context, the chief drivers are the never-ending stream of sensor inputs that—depending on their timing, sequencing, frequency, and values—can swing the runtime behavior of the system arbitrarily in every possible direction.… Read the rest